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It’s a cautionary tale, and one that brings forward once again the importance of vaccinating all children, regardless of what you might want for yourself.
Researchers are now estimating that one in eight children in the U.S. are not protected against measles.
And that’s just for children over three. Those under the age of three have an even worse statistic. About one in four of them are vulnerable to measles.
It’s extremely important to catch this before it gets worse.
The study was done by Robert Bednarczyk at the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University in Atlanta. The study followed results to a survey of vaccinations in U.S. adolescents between 2008 and 2013. What they found was that 9 million out of 70 million children under the age of 17 were not immune to measles. Either they could not be vaccinated, just weren’t vaccinated, or were undervaccinated.
The findings are preliminary, but they’re important.
Measles was responsible for up to 400 deaths a day around the globe in 2013.
It’s the one of the most contagious vaccine preventable-diseases, since not only is it airborne, but people can be contagious before they even show signs of having the virus.
Of course, some children are allergic to certain vaccine components. But it’s because of those people that vaccination is so important.
“Herd immunity,” which occurs when most people in a population are vaccinated, provides a buffer for those allergic, making them less likely to catch the disease.
While most communities in the US are meeting the 92 percent “herd immunity” mark, but many elementary schools are hovering near there, very close to not meeting it. Preschool children have even lower levels of herd immunity, meaning that less and less people are giving their kids the first in the measles-mumps-rubella series that they’re supposed to get as one-year-olds.
This is a recent development, too. We thought we had transmission of the disease eliminated in the U.S. in 2000, until spikes in 2011 and 2014 brought the number of national cases up to 600.
The most frequent causes of outbreaks, such as the five this year in the U.S. that have lead to 189 measles cases this year, are people who get infected overseas, aren’t vaccinated, and then come to the U.S. This is why it’s so important to stay vaccinated and not get placated by the U.S.’s relative immunity.
So vaccinate your children, please.
